EP will face a weakened Free State Cheetahs team, who are without 13 first-choice players (including Springboks Coenie Oosthuizen, Heinrich Brussow and Johan Goosen). However, director of rugby Alan Solomons stressed that the hosts will still be favourites.

‘Participation in the Premier Division is crucial for us,’ Solomons told keo.co.za. ‘We are competing in the Super Rugby next year, so to play in the top domestic competition will increase the growth of our team and our junior players.

‘However, it’s going to be a tough challenge to achieve that against Free State. Normally you play one of the smaller unions in the promotion-relegation play-offs, but we have to beat one of the top five unions in the country.

‘As a top union and a Super Rugby franchise, the Cheetahs have the depth to replace those injured players. As a First Division union, we don’t have the same kind of depth. But our junior players have stepped up; lock Reynier Bernardo and inside centre Shane Gates are both still U21 and are from our academy.’